Head-to-Head Pool Robot Comparisons

Comparisons only help once you are comparing the right things. There is an order to this, and most people start three steps too late — at brand, when the first two decisions have already eliminated most of the market.

Step 1: category — does it have its own motor and filter?

A robotic cleaner has its own motor, pump and filter and runs with your pool pump switched off. A suction cleaner is driven by your pump and sends debris into your filter. A pressure-side cleaner is driven by return pressure, usually from a booster pump, and bags debris before it reaches your filter.

Those are different products, not different quality tiers. A pressure-side cleaner will swallow acorns and cones that jam every robot intake; a robot will filter silt that no bag mesh catches; a suction cleaner will outlive both and cost you pump hours. The types-of-cleaners guide sets out all five categories.

Step 2: architecture — battery or cable?

Within robots, this is the decision that determines how long you own the machine. Cordless carries the better current specifications and nothing to set up; corded has no battery and routinely outlives two cordless machines.

The question that settles it is narrower than you would think: is a replacement battery sold for the specific model you are considering? Where one is (the Aiper Scuba S1 at ~$80, the WYBOT C1 at ~$69), cordless is a six-to-eight-year purchase. Where it is not, it is a three-to-four-year purchase and should be priced that way. The full comparison works through it.

Step 3: brand — what has each one optimized for?

Only now does brand matter, and it matters because the three that count have made genuinely different engineering bets:

• Aiper — filtration fineness (3 micron) and hands-off ownership (charging docks), with the best cordless parts ecosystem.
• Beatbot — debris capacity (5-liter and 9-liter baskets) and coverage breadth (the only cordless machines that skim the surface), with the most expensive consumables.
• Dolphin — service life. No battery, and a numbered stocked part for everything that wears out.

Pick the brand whose priority matches your pool’s problem, not the one with the best overall reputation. The three-way has a decision table.

Step 4: model — and only then

The five model-against-model pages are for readers who have already done the first three steps and are choosing between two specific machines. They are the most useful pages on this site for someone about to buy, and the least useful for someone just starting.

What every comparison on this site does

Leads with a verdict. The answer is in the first hundred words, because a comparison that makes you read two thousand words to find out which one to buy has failed at its one job.

Names the condition under which it flips. “It depends on your needs” is not an answer. We make the call and then state exactly what would change it — pool over 40 feet, freeform shape, coarse debris, ten-year horizon.

Says when a third option beats both. Several of these comparisons end by recommending something that is on neither side of the question. The clearest example: a corded Dolphin plus a solar skimmer costs less than a single surface-skimming flagship, removes more debris, and has no battery to age. No manufacturer will ever tell you that.

Compares published figures only. Where a manufacturer does not publish a suction figure, a micron rating or a rated pool area, the comparison table says so rather than filling it in. Several of these tables have more “not published” cells than you would expect at the prices involved, and that is itself a finding.

If you are not ready to compare yet

Start from the problem instead. Pick by debris if you know what is in your pool, pick by pool if you know its size, type and surface, or use the selector, which asks for all four and narrows to a shortlist.